SummaryThis paper provides a sketch of the main syntactic properties of verbs selecting a time‑related noun as their argument, in order to be able to distinguish them, during automatic text processing, from formally identical adverbs that present the internal structure of a noun phrase.

SummarySpace appears to be a primary cognitive notion in grammar, especially when it comes to dealing with problems about the representation of meaning. Indeed, it enables to « embody » a large part of our cognition and structure our conceptual approach. It is possible to find many recent cognitive studies about spatial prepositions (dans, sur, sous…), but it is not the case with ici/là/là-bas, although these have a particular place in spatial reference. This article aims at to compense for this lack and give back to là-bas its true place in the system of spatial deixis. We defend the hypothesis that là-bas is an opaque indexical symbol, “a phrase that points to its referent through elements that are spatio-temporally linked to its occurrence” (Kleiber, 1986). This hypothesis enables us to grab the different uses of là-bas from a single point of view and establish the fact that there is only one adverb despite the various intermediary elements. And consequently these elements are the base of our typologie. In conclusion the way là-bas is used is proved to be more complex than hinted at in former approaches.

SummaryThis paper explores the syntactic structure of those French constructions where an NP directly follows another. Examples are provided by Monsieur le Professeur, Mes amis les linguistes, Les linguistes mes amis, the later being equivalent to the English cases My Brother the fool and The fool my brother. Following an analysis of their distributional property, the syntactic structure of the groups is shown to involve the modification of the first noun by the following DP. While therefore structurally comparable to an adjectival modifier, these DPs impose a condition of coreference between the two nouns. A further interpretative constraint is shown to hold concerning the referentially anchored status of either of the DPs. Thus, the form of the complement can determine the behaviour of the head, as demonstrated by this atypical nominal group.

SummaryThis paper deals with syntax and semantics of french predicative noun phrases, i.e noun phrases whose head is a predicative noun. A predicative noun is a noun that can be derived from a verb (construction) or an adjective (difficulté) or is a noun that occurs in support verb constructions (effet). We formulate a set of hypothesis for distinguishing predicative nouns from non predicative ones. We show the most important properties of predicative noun phrases, study the syntax of main constructions, and propose a logic semantic representation for them.

Summary The aim of this paper is to present a contrastive analysis of reformulation markers in French (c’est-à-dire) and in Greek (δηλαδή). Within this perspective, we propose to examine in which cases we can substitute one marker to the other in order to verify if they are equivalent or not. The analysis shows coincidences in their prototypical functions such as explanation and definition, whereas differences arise when pragmatic factors are involved. Assuming that those differences have roots in discourse, parallel differences are expected to be found in their semantic instructions. We argue that their comparison can lead us on one hand, to seize their common properties allowing them to permute in similar contexts, and, on the other hand, new markers, that were not taken into account initially, can reveal new data for this study.

SummaryA class of complex determiners in Polish is described and some of their formal properties are discussed. These determiners are not conservative. They are, however, systematically related by the operation of inversion of arguments to the conservative (atomic co-intersective) determiners represented by generalized universal quantifiers denoted by various exclusion phrases.